Stephen Diehl toasted the world exuberantly first conference for crypto skeptics, which he co-hosted this week. “We would like to thank the sponsors and of course the Illuminati,” he said to almost insane hysteria from the gallery. “We couldn’t have done it without them!”
It was the final night of the two-day Crypto Policy Symposium in London, and a group of crypto skeptics had gathered at a Marylebone club to sip free Prosecco and conspicuously not selling crypto tokens. I was surrounded by guys who were the polar opposite of your usual Crypto Brothers conference-goer: they wore corduroys, worked in IT, and looked like your dad. Their names were all Martin, and they came with evidence-based research, hard-headed policy proposals, and empirical, totally uncontroversial perspectives on market structure.
“We’re becoming more organized and more powerful, and this conference is proof of that,” said Diehl, a virulent online crypto critic and one of the main organizers of the conference. (Coincidentally, he also sells a new free self-published book he co-authored, “Burst the crypto bubble.”)
Along with his colleagues, Diehl lively answered questions from all attendees, including a pro-coiner who wanted to know more about the panel’s thoughts on the IoT blockchain network helium. (Spoiler alert: you think it’s wrong). They brought down the house with their ironic provocations – “Crypto Bros like talk about code; true hardcore skeptics can actually code” – and her cynical view of an industry that has long relied on hype.
They even tolerated a question from a panting pig messenger from a despised crypto publication about the skeptics’ relationship with policymakers. “Of the crypto presses!” Diehl commented scornfully before giving me a curt reply: “Crypto skeptics are certainly more involved in expressing our feelings to policymakers. We have people from the highest echelons of power saying things our people are saying.”
The Crypto Policy Symposium, which was largely online but included a networking evening, was the world’s first conference of its kind and featured men and women in positions of significant influence. Skeptical Twitter pundits made policymakers sweat. Disaffected programmers mingled financial times journalists. There were former regulators and even a sitting US Congressman, Rep. Brad Sherman anti-crypto Southern California Democrat.
The conference was the first of what organizers hope will be a long run, and a new organization, the Center For Emerging Tech (or something), was formed in its wake.
Crypto skeptics have been around almost as long as crypto, but the parabolic surge in cryptocurrencies last year – and the one that followed this year vomiting crash– brought with it a new, more determined cohort. The crypto skeptic is no longer a semi-tragic loner: the game’s new entrants are hugely influential online, and many are Molly Whitehave become celebrities themselves – if they weren’t already celebrities Ben McKenzieHis “The OC” actor went belligerent crypto skeptics and aspiring author.
So far, the no-coiner effort has been a rather meager counterbalance to the 10 million dollars in the lobbying thrown at Congress by the pro-crypto world for the last five years. At least for now, the no-coiner lobby isn’t much of a threat.
The event itself, for example, was a spartan affair. The use of the club environment for private members was made available to one of the organizers free of charge. There was minimal marketing and most panels were virtual.
The personal part was not widely advertised, presumably to deter Bitoiner terror attacks. The panels were sober: “The Politics of Bitcoin”, “Crypto Contagion”, “Are Regulators And Regulations Fit To Meet The Crypto Challenge??”
“Usually, crypto events try to sell you something,” says organizer Jan Akalin, one of Diehl’s co-authors. “We wanted this event to be free instead of bribing people.”
Some of the speakers were impressive – and more than a little dramatic.
Arguably the leading crypto hater in Congress, Sherman spoke terrifically about the threats crypto poses to American prestige.
Here was a man whose energy exuded imperial authority. A Stars and Stripes hung behind him. He spoke with that timeless and slightly disturbing statesmanlike reasoning perfected by HW Bush. Every utterance he made made you feel like you were being hit by a predatory drone. His eyes sparkled enigmatically.
He spoke at length about hamsters. “Will Bitcoin always be worth more than Hamstercoin?” he thundered. “The Uruguayan peso will always have some value because there will always be a Uruguay. Will Hamstercoin always have the same value? What about Cobracoins? And while a mongoose can defeat a cobra or a hamster, I believe Mongoosecoin — a coin that was the result of a joke I told at a hearing — is now worthless!”
Alex Sobel, on the other hand, a friendly Labor MP from Leeds North, exuded less imperial authority and more the impression of having just climbed out of a single bed he shared with a dog. He was hanging out at the back of the free bar. As a former software engineer, he seemed up for a chat, so I sauntered over to him and asked his view on crypto in Westminster.
“There is an awareness in Parliament that nothing backs crypto,” Sobel told me. “What doesn’t happen is MPs don’t say, ‘I lost all my money,’ so it’s not really piercing.”
What particularly intrigued me was where Sobel said he acquired much of his anti-crypto perspective: an “excellent” book titled “Attack on the Fifty Foot blockchain“-individually David Gerhard.
That David Gerhard! I looked around and there he was indeed, two meters tall directly behind me, my lone cryosceptic source from the good old days of decrypt, the man I would call for a simple hater quote on all things blockchain, no longer alone but in his element surrounded by the spawn of his intellectual labors, the effervescent paterfamilias of a vibrant 3rd-century imperial Chinese dynasty who revels in the branch its royal output. I had never seen him so happy.
“Dude, that’s an odd dude,” he told an intrigued listener. “Two boys, that’s one movement!”
I moved closer and asked if he was actually in his element – if this felt like a turning point. “Nice,” said Gerard shyly. “I mean, it’s been coming for years of course, but it’s nice to be with like-minded people.”
Don’t you feel that this is suddenly a very serious movement? I asked.
“I mean, there are 8 billion no-coiners in the world,” he shrugged. He probably meant millions since there are fewer than 8 billion people in the world. But who was I to correct the Maestro?
Gerard opined that the cryptoskeptic movement was beginning to sway hearts and minds. The reasoning in Alex Sobel’s speech during the virtual conference (which Gerard proudly said “was basically half my idea”) was: “Basically 2+2=4. Which is a fact.”
Wessel Pannebakker, who introduced himself as “a student from the Netherlands who is very interested in crypto and its applications”, was among the few pro-crypto participants. (Pannebakker had asked if the hosts thought the helium network viable.) We met over the salted almonds, which I had devoured alone and in contempt.
Pannebakker was vocally amazed at what was happening. “It’s fair to say that any ‘symposium’ should have both sides,” he grumbled. “I didn’t expect that only one side would be discontinued! Even though there are many scams and scams, it is important to have a balanced view of both sides.”
I told him that against an endless backdrop of trillions of dollars worth of pro-crypto conferences, it might be sensible to have a tiny anti-crypto conference.
He disagreed, saying the skeptics should at least try to interact with, say, the helium network. “It wouldn’t be so bad for them to spend $50 to interact with applications, to play around,” he said. (Curiously, he told me he’d never actually used it either.)
Whether “don’t knock until you try” is an adequate substitute for classical methods of empirical truth-finding is a question for philosophers. Nevertheless, I introduced it to Martin Walker, an amiable member of the Center for Evidence-Based Managementthat I had met as the night drew to a close.
Walker, flabby gray haired and dressed like a railroad enthusiast, was one of the organizers of the event. I asked if a skeptical, rational view was always appropriate: if a little gullible blind faith was ever beneficial. It Has has made many stupid people rich, I ventured.
Walker seemed doubtful. “If we didn’t see the world in terms of facts,” he said, “we would still be living in caves.”
Oh. That was the imaginative lack displayed at this conference. Would it be a professional-Crypto-Event, feverish entrepreneurs would surely call caves the new literal “hard” stores of value and try to sell me an NFT derivative-of-a-derivative tied to the quantifiable ignorance of cave dwellers and above -collateralized by Neolithic renderings of antelope.
But I didn’t try to sell Walker anything, nor did he try to sell me anything, so we settled on it instead and amicably parted ways. And I held back to use up what was left of the free almonds.
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